


Protector and Protected

by cathcacen



Series: Protector and Protected [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire, Asoiaf - Fandom, GoT - Fandom, a game of thrones - Fandom, game of thrones
Genre: F/M, jon snow x sansa stark - Freeform, jon x sansa - Freeform, jonsa
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-19
Updated: 2018-02-19
Packaged: 2019-03-21 06:10:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13734801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cathcacen/pseuds/cathcacen
Summary: Jon and Sansa take turns protecting one another. A collection of drabbles.





	1. The Words of the Unkind

“They don’t want us together.” He says, through gritted teeth.

She arches a brow and glances up from her sewing. Jon is standing before her, eyes dark, his jaw set in a hard line. She can almost laugh; Jon is hardly ever perturbed by what others think, and here he is, her husband, so angry he can hardly speak. The Whispers from the South had never been kind to news of the Starks. Even moreso, now it seemed the Starks had taken to Targaryen tradition.

She thought it was ironic, almost, given who they’d crowned Queen.

She could care less what they said in the South. The North was all that mattered; the North and its people, all of whom loved their King.

“You mean the Southerners?” She tells her husband, setting her stitch in place. The direwolf sigil stood strong against a field of white, but by its side, she’d woven a dragon.

He only nods.

“You’d think they’d be more accepting of incest, what with their Lannister queen and the two bastard kings she’d mothered.” She remarks, mildly.

“They don’t believe we’re cousins.” Jon says. His voice comes out a touch strangled.

 _He’s had enough trouble coming to terms with that, himself,_ Sansa knows.

“It’s a pity we’ve far too much to do up here, than to send proof of it across the realms, then. I don’t think the poor Reeds could take that much travelling, and even then, I don’t know that they’d be able to convince them.” She says.

Jon groans. “You’re oddly unbothered by all of this.”

“Well, I’m your wife. What’s this I hear about wives being the calm half of the marriage bed?” She glances up at him, smiling. To his credit, Jon tries – oh, how he tries, to smile back. “I don’t see how any of that matters, anymore. We’ve been married all of three moons, and the gods know we’ve most certainly married ourselves in this room.”

He trudges towards her, and his smile grows softer, more genuine. Quietly, with resignation, he settles by her side upon the floor, and lowers his face into her lap. “They say you are a whore, and a sinner. They say we are brother and sister, raised together, and that what we have done is to spit on the gods.”

She sets her sewing aside, and gently lays her hands upon the back of his head. “We do not share their gods, now, do we?”

He lets out a sigh. “I didn’t think it would hurt this much, hearing what they say about you.”

“People will say what they want to say.” She tells him. “Theon and I were raised together, and Littlefinger and my mother were raised together. And what of those others, who say you should make a match for yourself that would better benefit the realm? Perhaps they would see you married to the dragon queen who comes for us all.”

“Never.” He says, instantly, lifting his head. His eyes are earnest.

She smiles gently, then bends to kiss him. “Well, yes. She is your aunt.”

He chuckles tiredly, but catches her hand, pressing her fingers to his lips. “They also say you would be better off as Littlefinger’s wife.”

“And thankfully, he is as dead as my last husband.”

“Sansa.” Jon’s voice catches a little. “I don’t want any of this to hurt you, you see? I can’t bear it, I won’t lose another.”

She lowers herself onto the floor, on her knees, by his side. Her hands find the sides of his face, taut and thickly stubbled. “You won’t lose me, no matter what they say. Up here, we are safe, and their words are but whispers that die without meaning.”

He meets her eyes, the brown stark and filled with steel. “What would I do without you?” He says, at last.

“Gods know, Jon.” She tells him, amused. “The world wants you married off, it seems.”

“But I am yours.” He says.

“Yes.” She answers, leaning into him. “You are mine.”


	2. Short Tempers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Littlefinger is in love with Sansa and Jon is having none of it.

There’s a fire blazing in her chambers when she gets in that night, and Jon is sitting before it, dark and brooding and thoughtful and, she realises with a surge of pride, so very much like father. He doesn’t look up when she makes her way to him, but both the glasses that sit on the tray between their twin chairs are filled with ruby wine. She picks one of them up and drapes her other hand over his shoulder, squeezing lightly with the slender digits.

He grunts in response.

“I hear Littlefinger’s in love with me.” She remarks, tiredly.

His face changes in an instant, and he straightens. His eyes are blazing with fury – they’re dark as his hair, equally wild in that moment. “Where did you hear that?” He almost growls, and she can’t help but to smile at it, looking down as a lady is taught. _To hide inappropriate amusement_ , her septa had once said.

“I may or may not have heard cook’s daughter asking for some herbs to bring bruising down.” She makes her way around his chair and settles down on the other, facing the fire. “And I knew he had come after you, into the crypts, to see your mother.”

Jon watches her in silence as she takes her seat, and if she’s honest with herself, she’s impressed he didn’t break Littlefinger’s neck there and then.

 _I’ll protect you, I promise_ , he’d said.

He’s made good work of that promise so far, and she’s starting to believe him.

“He’s asked for your hand in marriage.” He grunts, and she can hear the strain in his voice. His shoulders quake a little as he slumps forward, burying his forehead into one outstretched hand.

“What did you say?” She knows the answer, but she asks anyway. It’s become a bit of a game with them as of late – a lordling asks for her hand, and Jon refuses on her behalf. _‘You had best ask my cousin herself. I won’t grant her hand lightly, nor without her consent,’_ he would say.

None of the lordlings had ever dared to ask her personally though, and she’s glad for it.

He scoffs loudly. “Well, I didn’t tell him to ask you, that’s for sure.” His voice is tightly controlled. “I won’t insult you by asking if you actually want his hand in marriage.”

“Well,” She supplies, thoughtfully, “He’s of some use yet. He holds his cards in the Vale, so I do need to keep him occupied and interested until I can get word to my cousin, Lord Arryn.”

Jon raises his head again, and she thinks she sees fear in his eyes. Horror. Dread. Anger. “Sansa, there’s no way I’d ever agree to that. You’re not putting yourself in that snake’s path. I won’t let you.”

She smiles wryly at him, and takes a long sip of her wine. Echoing her, he does the same, though unlike her, he drains the entire glass.

“You’re sweet, Jon.” She says, and he manages a chuckle. “We’ll figure this out. Either way, Littlefinger has to go. I just don’t know how…” She looks down at her hands. “I only know I can’t do it alone, no matter how hard I try, so… I have to trust someone.”

He shifts a little in his seat, and his face is hard when she turns, at last, to look at him. “Yes?”

“Yes.” She asserts. It surprises her, just how easy it is to admit it. _I need him, and he needs me too._ “We’ll weather it together, won’t we? We’ll weather Cersei and the Lannisters, we’ll weather the white walkers, we’ll weather your aunt, whatever she intends for us, and we’ll weather the snake in our midst? We’ll do it together.”

He sets his empty glass down and stands. Jon’s footsteps have always been heavy, but they’re even moreso in the moment, strong and hard against the wooden floors. It comforts her to know he’s real, and safe, and there with her, for her.

He kneels before her and takes both her hands in his own. They’re warm and calloused, and she loves the way they wrap so fully around her own. “Of course.” He bends, laying his forehead upon her lap and letting out a long, tired sigh. “I’ll protect you, Sansa. I promise.”

This time, she doesn’t refute him. “We’ll protect each other.”


	3. The End, The Beginning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ramsey's reign of terror is over, and all Jon wants to do is rest.

Every bone in his body aches. His throat is burning from the smog and smoke and fire, and there’s a dull throbbing in his skull that corresponds to the trampling he’d somehow lived through. He’s weary and he wants to sleep.

And that’s nothing compared to the bubbling cauldron of emotions that are threatening to spill over at any given second.

He thinks back to the day his brothers had betrayed him. _How nice it would be_ , he thinks, _to sleep and never wake up again_. But the day is won, and Winterfell flies the Stark banner once more.

_What did it cost us?_

He wonders if the price is worth the war.

The maester is stitching a large wound on his scalp closed as the unmistakeable blaze of red crosses into his line of vision. Sansa makes her way across the battered remnants of their courtyard, sidestepping fallen stones, stiff-backed, regal, and strong. The hate burns bright in her eyes, and he can see it despite the film that blurs his sight.

He stands when she approaches him, waving the maester away. She fixes him with a stern sort of look that sweeps over his face and rounds his shoulders. Then, she looks at his hands.

The evidence of his encounter with Ramsay remains in the way each knuckle is bruised purple, some split bloody and all stained dark with ash.

“It’s done.” She says the words casually, almost off-handedly, as if she were announcing the completion of a tapestry, or something equally uninspiring.

As if she hadn’t just exacted well-earned vengeance upon the source of her sufferings.

“D’you remember the day you came to Castle Black?” He asks her, and his heart tightens to see her face soften at the hoarseness of his voice.

She nods. There’s no need for words, and she opens her arms out to him.

He collapses into her embrace, and suddenly, it’s her turn to play the role of the protector. He expects her hands to be soft and unmarked, as a lady’s ought to be, as they’d been before their parting so many years ago. But Sansa’s hands are rough and warm as they wrap themselves around him. She cups the back of his head, and he wonders if he’d held her this tightly the day she’d returned to him at Castle Black.

Later, he thinks, there will be time to talk. Later they will discuss the happenings of the day, and maybe he will tell her exactly what he thinks of her decision to engage in politics with the slimy Baelish fellow. But there is time enough for that, and Jon only wants to sleep.

She guides him to the Lord’s chamber and lowers him into the furs before the fire. And later, when the candles have burnt low and the sun has begun to rise once more, he rouses to find her sleeping in a chair close by, ever vigilant by his side.

And on a tray close to him rests a steak and kidney pie, with the peas and the onions.

The wolves have truly come home.


	4. Ghost of the Present

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jon can't be there, physically, but someone else can.

She’d watched him go and she hadn’t cried – she hadn’t made so much of a peep. She is steel, and steel does not weep.

Winterfell is home, but even less so without him in the room just down the hall. She holds court and pretends to take Littlefinger’s advice. When she’s alone in her room at night, she allows herself to fall apart.

It’s only been a week.

She remembers the feeling of sheer terror gripping her heart when he’d brought up his aunt, the Dragon Queen down in the South. _I have to go,_ Sansa. _The dragons are the key to defeating the walkers, and we can’t delay any longer._

 _Please don’t leave me behind_ , she’d wanted to say. But only little girls weep and beg, princesses who still dreamed of knights that were good and strong and kind.

She’s long abandoned her dreams and songs. So she lets him go, cloaking and masking herself in indifference. Littlefinger suspects nothing, and she has to keep him unawares if they are truly to succeed.

 _I love you_ , she whispers into the wind. So far up north, she wonders if the gale would reach her cousin in the South. If her voice would carry her message, to remind him of his Stark cousin, of his family waiting for him.

Two weeks later, she’s still having difficulty sleeping. Arya and Bran both try – gods they try, with wine and tinctures and medicines when both have failed. She lays awake in bed, recounting the day’s events in her head and sorting out tomorrow’s tasks. It’s a delicate, brittle situation in the North. The Starks have returned, but the Northern houses are no longer as they were – no longer prone to blind loyalty.

She knows it’s only the prospect of a greater evil that holds them together at present.

_We stand together, or we stand no chance._

Her bedroom is dark – all the candles had burned out hours ago, so she doesn’t notice she has company until the weight bears down by her side. She almost screams, her hand going instantly to the dagger she keeps on the bedside table.

It’s just Ghost, and he’s staring at her, crimson eyes unblinking, unafraid.

She lets out a breath, her heart racing. The dagger falls to the floor as Ghost nuzzles against her, and she wraps her arms about the direwolf, burying her face in his soft, slightly dirty fur. He smells like wet soil and old snow. Like Jon.

“I miss him too.” She lays back down, and the direwolf follows suit, blinking slowly. “It’s not so bad when you’re here, though.”

Ghost noses her neck gently, and she settles in for the night. _When you’re here, it feels like he is, too_

* * *

A thousand leagues to the South, Jon wakes to sunlight streaming through his window at Dragonstone. He’d slept dreamlessly.

He glances aside; his bed is empty. But he can’t shake the feeling there had been someone there the night before. Someone familiar – someone with hair kissed by fire.

Someone like Sansa.

He lets out a breath, shutting his eyes. _I hope you’re keeping her safe, Ghost._


	5. Dignity of a Queen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jon doesn't like it when Daenerys' horse lords leer at Sansa, and makes it known.

_Fuck ‘em. Fuck the lot of ‘em. Just who do these horse-fucking heathens think they are?_

His aunt glances up as he strides into her chambers. Her study forms one part of the suite of rooms, close by Sansa’s. Despite complains, they’d graciously installed her in one of the family’s chambers, befitting her title as the Queen.

Self-styled or no, proper respect was due. At least until Winter’s end.

“Do you know how much it takes to make _Tormund_ angry?” There’s loathing in his voice, and surely it’s obvious, because Missandei steps forward, arms raised as if to calm him down.

His aunt looks unimpressed. “About as much as it takes to make you angry, clearly.”

“I hit boiling point a whole toll before he did.” He waves Missandei away, and she glances at her queen – it’s only when his aunt nods that the girl backs away, slipping through the exit in her quiet, unassuming way. “You need to watch your Dothraki.”

“Their customs are not our own.”

He can’t help it; he practically snarls, and relishes in the way his aunt looks almost taken aback. “Do their customs include a plan to kidnap and fuck the Lady of Winterfell? Because when you set those laws in place for the Ironborn, I’d assumed your horde of horse fuckers were being held to the same standards.”

The queen’s face pales a little, and to her credit, she looks genuinely surprised. Still, he’s been less-than-impressed at her ‘governing’ as of late, so when she reaches out to him, he swats her hand away and takes a step back. Whatever had happened between them would need to stay on the boat. He can’t deal with it – he won’t.

_You know nothing, Jon Snow. You’re a fucking idiot._

His aunt tenses a little, but she is a proud woman, and rejection serves only to draw her ire. Her voice hardens, and her eyes narrow. “Men will talk.”

“And if they’d said the same about you, you’d have their tongues for it.”

“Lady Stark is not Queen.”

He grits his teeth. “And yet she has borne their lewd remarks and motions with the grace of one.”

Try as he might, he can’t quite shake the imagery from his mind. His aunt’s many Dothraki captains, cocks out, leering at his cousin as she’d walked past to inspect the latest batch of leather-covered breastplates and winter-weather garb. Garments she’d supplied out of the goodness of her own tender heart.

He’s not sure what makes him angrier: their blatant disregard of her kindness or the way they’d behaved towards her.

_I’d love to mount that red mare. I’d love to ride her – whip her until she screams. I’d love to see those lips around my cock._

He clenches his fist. _Sansa doesn’t deserve any of this. She’s her own person._ He draws a breath. _She’s **mine**._

His aunt thins her lips. If there was any doubt at all in her mind that he cared for Sansa, there’s none now.

He’s been found out.

Defiance flares. _Let her see._ “The next time it happens, they hang.”


End file.
